


Specter

by Amariahellcat



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Oneshot, Out of Body Experiences, Physical Therapy, haunted apartment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 05:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15722934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amariahellcat/pseuds/Amariahellcat
Summary: The last thing Shepard expects when she moves into the apartment is a snarky Turian ghost, but that’s what she gets.





	Specter

_“Are you sure you don’t need anything? Even just a hand moving?”_

_“I’m fine, Kaiden. I don’t have much to move.”_

_“But-”_

_“I said I’m **fine**.” she snaps, then “I’m sorry, but really, I’m fine. I just need some time away.”_

_“Alright, Shepard.”_

 

* * *

 

 The apartment building is a small, inconspicuous building on a sidestreet of a small town whose name she doesn’t disclose to anyone but Anderson - the sides are weathered stone, showing wear but no vandalism, aged but well kept.

The apartment itself is small - a pre-furnished single bedroom with no separation between the kitchen and living space, just enough room for one person. The furnishings were left by the previous occupant, she’s told - a Turian, going by the curvature of the bed - who had left the things there and never returned for them.

It doesn’t bother her. She’s a Marine; she’s slept on much worse things than a Turian bed.

A week passes uneventfully. She bumps into some of her neighbors - an Asari and a Quarian, a Krogan and a Salarian - but never interacts more than necessary, careful to keep conversations short and to the point.

Then things start to move. Small things, at first. Her pen straightened and her journal flipped shut. Her datapads piled neatly.

Then her mug is washed and left in the drainer, when she knows it had been on her nightstand half filled with coffee.

Her hoodie hung up and put away. Laundry thrown in the basket.

Her pistol tucked safely back into her drawer, where she’d snatched it from in the fresh moments after waking from a nightmare in the middle of the night.

_“Who was the previous occupant of that apartment?”_  she starts asking, curious.

_A Turian,_  her neighbors say, thinking,  _Young. Bit of a loner._

And that’s all they know, leaving her with more questions.

So she waits - pays attention to when things are moved, and how often. To what objects seem to  _call_  to this intruder.

Leaves her pistol out on her nightstand and sits in the darkness, watching and waiting.

And finally she sees him - barely a shadow, a silvery ghost near the opposite wall of the room. A glimmer of a Turian, blue eyes glaring from the darkness of the room.

“Who are you?” Shepard asks, not afraid but curious.

“I don’t know.” says the blue eyed specter.

 

* * *

 

 Days pass, and he starts showing up more - during the day as well as the night, in the shadows of the wall or the slips between sunbeams.

Shepard doesn’t mind him so much - if anything, he’s interesting, something to keep her mind occupied while she’s stuck here, recuperating.

Her injury isn’t anything life threatening or severely detrimental, but it  _is_  frustrating, being unable to walk properly without the assistance of a cane - working through the prescribed physical therapy vids and grunting in annoyance anytime a move stretches her muscles just a little too much.

A chuckle catches her off guard on one such day, just after she’s flopped to the ground with a loud grunt of annoyance - a soft, flanged sound echoing out from the shadow, where she finds the Specter watching her from beside the tiny window of her living space.

He looks decidedly amused, if she’s reading his expression right - she’s not known many Turians, but his mandibles are flared, blue eyes bright, and his shoulders seems loose. As loose as an images’ can be, at least.

“Something funny?” she growls, addressing him for the first time since that night he’d appeared by her bed, glaring when he laughs again.

“You.” he hums, shifting sideways through a sunbeam, reappearing on the other side of the room, “You look ridiculous. What are you doing?”

“Physical therapy.” Shepard pushes up into a sit, still glaring, “Gotta get better so I can go back to the Alliance.”

“Alliance, huh? What are you, a Marine?”

“Damn  _straight_.” the last word comes out as a grunt of pain as she shoves herself to her feet, snatching her cane almost angrily from the couch beside her, “A Marine that’s sick of being useless.”

The Specter goes quiet for a moment, blue eyes locked on her leg - on the quivering in her muscle, the spasming she can’t quite control despite her work with the therapist. “Injured on a mission?”

“Stupid mistake - could’ve been a lot worse.” Shepard takes a breath, pins him with her gaze, “ How about you, Specter? How’d  _you_  get stuck like this?”

That makes him pause, mandibles quivering as he looks down, “I’m not… sure. A mission, I think? Or maybe…”

He looks upset suddenly, slipping away into a shadow and vanishing, and she’s left wondering what memory she might have stirred.

 

* * *

 

 He’s a welcome guest, once he returns several days later - no sign that he’s holding a grudge, and just as willing to make fun of her attempts at exercise as before.

She’s been doing some digging this time, though, asking more questions, poking through some of the belongings still left strewn throughout the apartment - things she hadn’t noticed or questioned in the beginning, figuring they were cleaning supplies or sheets.

One box in particular had answered several questions after she’d found it - tucked the furthest back on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, nearly landing on her head before she catches it with her biotics.

This box is  _personal_  - several old datapads that are encrypted, a tool set and what she’s pretty sure is a pair of personalized gloves, and… a visor. Definitely meant for a Turian, and password encoded.

She’s sitting at the little breakfast bar when he shows up, coffee mug in hand and spoils laid out before her, green eyes flicking up to find him hovering on the other side of the counter.

He’s never been this close, before, and it’s strange to see him without a wall directly behind him - to see just how translucent he is, a shadowy vision, but not flat like one might expect of a ghost - solid as though he were real.

“Where did you find this?” he asks, an almost mournful trill to his voice that she hasn’t heard there before.

“In the closet. I thought I’d go looking for clues.” Shepard lifts the visor, noting how his vision locks on and follows it, “But it’s code locked, so I can’t-”

He mumbles something - something that doesn’t quite translate - and the visor flicks to life in her hands, screen activating and info scrolling across the blue. She’s quick to lift it to her eye, translator trying to catch up with the bits of text flying past, locking onto one piece of information hovering in the top right: a name.

“Garrus.” she reads, eyes going to his to judge his reaction, “Garrus Vakarian?”

The Specter trills, a quiet purr joining the noise, and one mandible flicks out, “I think… that’s me.”

 

* * *

 

Shepard grows stronger, and Garrus starts to remember more. She never asks specifics of what happened to him - she’s not sure she wants to know, and she’s sure he doesn’t want to relive it.

She knows that she enjoys his company - cracking snarky comments from the couch while she’s exercising, making unhelpful suggestions while she’s cooking, enjoying bad movies with her late at night. She wishes, selfishly, that she’d met him before whatever happened.

Leave it to Commander Shepard to develop a crush on a ghost.

What’s worse is he seems to return the sentiment - translucent form close on the couch while they watch movies, blue eyes almost soft while they talk and trade snarks, an almost tangible warmth to him when he brushes a hand over her head one night.

He even joins her on her bed one night, when they’ve been talking and can’t seem to stop, shadowy form sprawled comfortably on top of the covers to her left.

“Shepard… I remember.” she hears him say as she’s drifting off, the faintest of words, and then she’s asleep.

 

* * *

 

 Garrus is gone the next morning, and no amount of calling and pleading brings him back. She waits a week, two weeks, then admits that he’s not coming back.

Shepard allows herself to mourn - let’s herself cry for the first time in years - and then forces herself up, casts her cane aside, and finishes her therapy. She’d known it was going to happen, eventually.

A spirit had to move on, eventually, no matter how much someone else didn’t want them to - she’s happy that he found peace, and hopes that she might have been some part of it.

A month following his disappearance, Shepard is ready to return to the Alliance, and she carefully packs up her things and returns the objects of the apartment back to where they’d been when she arrived.

The visor she can’t help tucking into her bag, a last little memory of the Specter that had helped her heal, the first man she’d ever felt anything for.

She’s just double checking her bags and glancing around the bedroom, doing a last check, when a clicking noise from the front room makes her go stiff, hackles raised.

_That’s the door…_

Shepard’s pistol is in her hand as she creeps out into the kitchen, hovering around the corner as the lock clicks one last time and the door swings open.

“Least the lock still works…” she hears the intruder muttering, footsteps drawing closer across the space, and she throws herself out from behind the breakfast bar, pistol aimed and ready.

“Stop where you are-” Shepard falters, eyes going wide and grip on the weapon failing as she stares at the impossibility before her, heart thundering in realization. “Garrus?”

Her Specter stares back, looking thinner then his ghost but  _alive_ , blue eyes wide in confusion and wonder.

“You’re  _real_.” he whispers.


End file.
